


Pigs for Slaughter

by AnthonyRidad



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnthonyRidad/pseuds/AnthonyRidad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man from the 27th Expedition makes it back to Wall Maria, the terrors of fighting a war humanity cannot win still clear in his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pigs for Slaughter

His horse gallops.

The wind rustles his hair. There is sweat running down his forehead, fear running strong in his heart. He is well beyond Wall Maria now. He is the sole survivor of his squad, of the entire 27th Expedition.

To his knowledge, all of his comrades died in vain.

They accomplished nothing in their struggle.

All his friends, all of the one-hundred and fifty members of the Survey Corps, all his superiors, all the recruits, all the veterans, threw their life away in the name of humanity. But in the end it didn’t even matter.

Now he rides onward, lost in the featureless landscape of the lands beyond the wall. His horse should be dying soon. He’s been riding on his back for hours now, through kilometers and kilometers of empty fields and ruined, ancient towns.

By some miracle, there are no titans around him. There is only an endless expanse of emptiness stretching out in every direction.

But the fear he feels is real, even though he is certain that death is the only fate waiting for him.  

He salvaged as much gas he could manage, stealing from the corpses and gears of his fallen comrades. They were taken by surprise, ambushed in a field. An army of titans emerged out of nowhere, tearing into their formation as easily as an arrow tears through cloth.

Now he runs.

And now he runs.

As the sun sinks in the distance, he rides hard and long, in whichever direction his horse’s legs chooses to take him. Right now, nothing matters. Right now, there is only death and emptiness left hanging in the air.

Humanity’s efforts were all for naught.

But when he sees the wall in the far distance of his vision, he feels a sudden relief. The feeling of hope returns swelling in his chest, and for a brief moment, he forgets all the scenes of death and despair. For a moment, his son and daughter flash in his memory.

He’s made it; he’s made it back to Wall Maria.

He spurs his heroic horse onward, straight toward the nearest straight of the wall.

He leaves the horse behind, knowing full well that his companion is safe to graze in titan territory. He aims his gear upward, shooting hooks up into the sky.

Tired, ragged, with his clothes torn and titan blood dripping from his knees and legs, he climbs the surface of the wall.

He doesn’t know which part of the wall he’s on, but if he keeps going left or right, then surely he’ll find the way back to a district, one way or another.

But a colossal titan’s eyes meet his own the moment he stands atop the wall, standing tall on the land just beyond.

 ** _“Oh.”_** the titan says in a voice too low and too monstrous to be human. **_“Look at this.”_**

He is too frozen in fear to move.

He is too frozen in fear to run as the massive, crimson hand picks him up by pinching his travel cloak. The titan must at least be sixty meters tall. Its skin already disappeared, its eyes and lips as ripe and swollen as ugly red apples.

It lifts him high up, ten, twenty meters above the walls.

Only then does he realize that the land he sees before him is not land enclosed within wall Maria.

The land beyond this wall is filled with titans.

All of them colossal.

All of them taller than forty meters.

They walk amongst one another, their skins melted off and their bodies disproportionate.

There are tens of thousands of them, as far as the eye could see. All large and terrifying and monstrous.

One by one they look up, staring at the man with expressionless, red eyes.

 ** _“This one almost got out.”_** the titan holding him says to none of his fellow titans in particular.

 ** _“Just throw it back in.”_** answered a voice as deep and low as his, in a matter all too human.

The titan holding him weak against his will does something akin to a shrug. And with a flick of his finger, sends him flying, high and high into the air, helpless and screaming, back into the lands between Wall Maria and the Wall beyond the Walls.

He dies, his body splattered against the ground.

He dies, having none of his questions answered.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked it!
> 
> Here's one of my many theories on the nature of the series. 
> 
> Hopefully I managed to portray it with the same atmosphere of mystery and scale as Attack on Titan. 
> 
> Otherwise, this is my first attempt at writing a one shot in a long time. I hope I didn't disappoint.


End file.
